Probably not a year in this century has
been without losses from this source, though only occasionally
have they been marked with considerable disasters. In 1832
the Ski-di band suffered a severe defeat on the Arkansas from
the Comanches. In 1847 a Dakota war-party, numbering over
seven hundred, attacked a village occupied by two hundred and
sixteen Pawnees, and succeeded in killing eighty-three.
In 1854 a party of one hundred and thirteen were cut off by
an overwhelming body of Cheyennes and Kiowas, and killed
almost to a man. In 1873 a hunting party of about four
hundred, two hundred and thirteen of whom were men, on the
Republican, while in the act of killing a herd of buffalo,
were attacked by nearly six hundred Dakota warriors, and
eighty-six were killed. But the usual policy of their
enemies has been to cut off individuals, or small scattered
parties, while engaged in the chase or in tilling isolated
corn patches. Losses of this kind, trifling when taken
singly, have in the aggregate borne heavily on the tribe.
It would seem that such losses, annually recurring, should
have taught them to be more on their guard. But let it be
remembered that the struggle has not been in one direction,
against one enemy. The Dakotas, Crows, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
Arapahoes, Comanches, Osages, and Kansans have faithfully
aided each other, though undesignedly in the main, in this
crusade of extermination against the Pawnees.
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